
Damien Hirst
The Acquired Inability to Escape (1991)
Tate
Damien Hirst was a leading figure in the group of ‘Young British Artists’. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London (1986–9), and in 1988 curated the exhibition Freeze. His works are explicitly concerned with the fundamental dilemmas of human existence; his constant themes have included the fragility of life, society’s reluctance to confront death, and the nature of love and desire, often clothed in titles which exist somewhere between the naive and the disingenuous.